"No hurry in Africa"

One of the things which we as African people find hard to adjust to when we come here in the States in the pantuality in time. For many reasons we seem to have excuses for being late on time in many places ranging from work to church or any other event. Its not fair to say that all African people cannot keep time but however its safe to say the majority do not. Its an alarming trend that works aganist us as a people. I am pretty sure that most of us have either been late an a crucial period of time to some event or at least know somebody who did so.

For instance whenever something is said to start at 10 am just for example most of us will appear at 10 45am and that could probably be the first one. I know a lot of people who have lost a lot of good opportunities because of tardiness. However you look at it time is a major factor here in the developed nations. "In Africa time is relative" by that i mean we can adjust time anytime we feel like we are ready. One good friend of mine used to say "no hurry in Africa we are eighty hours ahead of America.

At my present job i happen to work with few guys from the "homeland" and sadly enough only one guy other than myself is pantual at work. Like when the shift ends at 7 am for example my collegies will arrive a good thirty or an hour later without either apology or calling. All they do is pretend like nothing happened and my American counterparts will be "pised off and shitt" at the same time banging the door as they leave the house. And one will think this will ring a message to a brother but only to discover he does the same thing next time and never learns a lesson at all. We work in any very friendly environment where maturity and self respect is required because its self management and brothers do not pass that test.

There is one employe in particular who no maater what will always be late, iam talking about one hour or thirty minutes late and many other employes have preached and scolded him but guess what the guys is like conrete which pouring water you make it harder. If for some reason he decide to call and make an apology that he will be late he would say "I just woke up and my alarm did not go off". to make matters worse the guy makes all the stupid excuses everyday ranging firm car accidents, wife, baby sick ,talk about any excuse he used them all and now he is repeating them. Like they say a liar has to have good memory he uses some of his excuses that he once used before.

In many African meetings be it church or staff like that people come so late that if the place is booked either a hotel or facilty like that Africans will come at the very last hour or so. Its sad i do not know if we are just relaxed or inherited it or its in our culture.back to my job the guy i spoke about earlier on was once five minutes early and people were "shocked" and that was only once in seven months. Also there is another one who rank the second worst but this one acts lke he is sophisticated always talking on the cell phone on the car when the staff that needs relieved is waiting for him. Americans will be cursing us for staff like that . Like Will he get his a.. in here and start working and stop acting like an important man. You know they tell it like it is.

Years back I learned a good lesson about never to be late for the job . I was hired by a temporay agency to work in a certain war house, in fact we were hired as a group since this company had just started and every three months they hired staff in to the company after the probation time. So me and this white guy were in the same team and at the end of three months he was hired first because his record was good and me i was three times late and missed one day. For the first time this has nothing to do with racism just pantuality and i vowed never to be tardy again , luckily i was also hired but being a second grade pained me so i learned my lesson . Time will not allow me to talk about a sister who amlost missed her flight to here from back home.

I will continue right now I must get ready for work so that i do not fall into a worse catergory and get my a... cursed by the mother f... of the world.